Malaysia has invested heavily in the development of this sector over the past 10 years. We will build on current initiatives already started by the Government and enhance their returns (under the National Creative Industry Policy managed by the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture and the MSC Malaysia Creative Multimedia Content Initiative run by the Multimedia Development Corporation, or MDeC). Current efforts by Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and other bodies such as the Access Forum, Content Forum and Consumer Forum have initiated interactions across the industry as a means to obtain feedback on the appropriate measures to further grow the industry.

This initiative represents a new industry-led public-private collaboration to grow the export segment at 20 percent a year and the domestic segment at 13 percent a year. The opportunities for improvement lie in developing talent for content creation and services, in providing necessary funding for local productions and in marketing our creations and capabilities internationally. Beyond GNI benefits, this EPP will help preserve Malaysia’s unique culture and heritage for the 21st century and future generations.

At present, Malaysia is behind benchmark countries in terms of creative industry contribution to GDP. The marked preference for foreign productions and content manifests itself in audience ratings of TV programmes as well as traffic to major international websites. On the other hand, local productions like the animation series "Upin and Ipin" or the popular documentary "Jejak Rasul" have enjoyed considerable local success and have even made inroads into regional markets. This indicates a latent demand for quality local productions in Malaysia and regionally, a demand that is still underserved today.